“Place shifting” is a technology which allows content from a first device to be re-transmitted over a network to a second device, enabling the content to be consumed at a location remote from the first device. The user at the remote location can control the first device using an interface to the second device which causes the second device to transmit commands back over the network to the first device. Typically a third device interfaces between the first device and the network to provide the place shifting technology, and is sometimes referred to as a place shifting device.
Place shifting devices are known that enable place shifting over a computer network, allowing a user to view and control media sources over a computer network from a remote location. A place shifting system may include a place shifting device and a place shifting player. The place shifting device may be configured to receive as an input virtually any media source. The broadcaster digitizes and compresses the received media content (if necessary) and streams the media over a computer network to the place shifting player. The place shifting player may reside on any of a wide range of client devices for viewing the media. A user may send control commands (e.g., “channel up”) using the place shifting player back over the network to be executed by the media source device, thus affecting the media stream received by the place shifting player. An example of a place shifting device and system is described in US Patent Application US 2006/0095471 which is hereby incorporated by reference.
A common use of “place shifting” is as follows. The first device is a television set top box (STB), receiving audio and video content. The second device can be a laptop PC, a mobile phone, or any similar device with a suitable display/output, network connection, and place shifting software (collectively, known as a place shifting player). The network is an IP or other network, for example a home network, WiFi, LAN, the open internet, or some combination of these. The third device is a dedicated place shifting device, which takes the analogue video output from the STB, and encodes it for transmission over the network. It also receives the commands from the place shifting player, and may transform these into infra red remote control codes, controlling the STB in the same way as its own standard remote control. The place shifting device may have multiple inputs, and multiple infra red remote control modules, thus allowing multiple audio and video sources to be place shifted and controlled at will, including video recorders, disc players, home security cameras, etc. A key element of the place shifting technology is that the audio and video encoding used to transmit the content over the network is adapted dynamically to match the bandwidth that is available on the network. Place shifting systems typically allow content to be provided to one remote device at a time.
In this way, people may watch the television channels received at their home whilst travelling away from home. They may also watch the programmes recorded onto their digital video recorder, and even control the device to schedule recordings to be made in the future. In short, any functionality that is available when using the STB within the home can be replicated at the remote location using place shifting technology.
Place shifting technology may be provided by a separate box attached to the STB via its analogue video outputs as described above. However, it is possible to integrate the STB functionality and a place shifting device or unit, which provides the place shifting functionality, into a single unit—a place shifting set top box (PS-STB). There is also the possibility of accessing higher quality digital video within the STB, rather than video that has been degraded by the conversion from digital to analogue in the STB, and then re-converted from analogue to digital in a separate place shifting device. Typically, where the place shifting functionality is combined with a STB the media content to be place shifted remains in the digital domain, and is usually re-encoded, often to a far lower bit rate, and often using a different codec to the original, broadcast, encoding scheme before being place shifted.
There is a potential drawback to integrating the place shifting device functionality and STB functionality into a single PS-STB. STBs are often sold directly to Pay-TV operators for them to supply to their customers/subscribers. These same Pay-TV operators may wish to control the conditions under which content can be place shifted.